Sadeq Khan
In his writings on micro-credit, self-reliance and enterprise of the poor in Bangladesh, while campaigning globally for social business, Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus once suggested that geography gives Bangladesh a good advantage: The social dynamics of Bangladesh people, placed between two giant neighbours with high levels of growth, facilitates the country’s capacity to absorb spill-over benefits of proximity.
Bangladesh’s capacity to withstand natural disaster shocks improved significantly. This resilience is attributable to a more diversified economy and improved emergency response capabilities, including early warning systems and cyclone shelters, throughout the country. More remarkably, Bangladesh’s rapid economic growth has been accompanied by little increase in inequality. With our giant neighbors bringing the whole business world to their doorsteps, Bangladesh can benefit simply from being in the neighborhood.
Failing beyond measures
Growing neighbors are convenient sources of technology, experience, skills and contacts. Bangladesh, in turn, can be an attractive venue for all kinds of outsourcing. If even a small portion of the business flowing into India or China comes to our shores, we will be a fast-moving economy. Simply by developing stable infrastructure and good governance, and reducing corruption, Bangladesh could lift itself out of poverty to climb up the ladder of prosperity.
Sadly, it is precisely on those three points, namely stable infrastructure, good governance and eradication of corruption that the political leadership in Bangladesh is failing beyond measure. For lack of timely and proper repair and maintenance, physical them unlivable in many parts. Drainage, sewage, gas-pipes and water supply are chronically in a state of disruption. Our sea-and river-ports, roads and highways, railways and airports suffer from malfunctions of one type or another.
This is not because money is not there for necessary works, but because moneys allocated are simply misappropriated by a chain of corrupt practices, leaving the works badly done or altogether undone. More deplorable is the deterioration of all our state institutions. The incumbent dynastic leadership has all through been looking backwards for legitimacy, by inheritance from the founding President of the Republic and not by unquestionable popular mandate. Dependent on abuse of coercive powers of the state by corrupt law-enforcement agencies given license to abduct, kill or hold citizens at ransom, the regime is pulling one trick after another to crush all opposition and re-establish a form of selective one-party state, BAKSAL style, with a pet opposition for show.
The wave of repression and police extortion, with back-up criminal gangs, have so brutalised the public as have led to daily incidents of barbaric conduct, child abuse, rapes, torture and murder making headlines in newspapers. There is no remedy whatsoever for a victim in the hands of the magistracy or the judiciary, who have succumbed to the authoritarian thumb of the political masters of the regime either to become party to the corrupt chain of malpractices or to simply obey dictates.
Harping on outdated tunes
Meanwhile the economy is showing sure signs of trouble. Revenue collection has failed to reach budgeted target for the fiscal year 2014-15. Actual collection was 56.4% of original budget and 63.2% of the revised budget. To meet budget deficit, government has been borrowing from internal and external sources. For debt servicing, the allocation in interest alone was 20% of the proposed revenue (non-development) expenditure. Up to March 15, actual interest payment is already 24.8% of the actual revenue expenditure in the same period (Source: Bangladesh Economic Update, Unnayan Onneshan). Development activity is largely at a standstill.
Decision-making remains held up unless a signal comes from the room at the top. There is no delegation of executive power of the state, no criteria exist, whims and sycophancy rule the roost. In other words, there is no system of governance and the nation has sunk to the level of a banana republic. Social inequality is growing, with a whole class of idle rich consumer class adding gloss to the appearance of the expanded economy, while the toiling masses and the beleaguered entrepreneurs have to pay through their noses for survival. They hardly obtain the fruits of their productivity.
Beneath the surface, common folks are boiling with rage, but as yet unable to throw away their shackles. While Asia is rising and a new world order is taking shape, Bangladeshi political elite are continuing to harp on outdated tunes of the last century, and move backwards. As an example of how other successful countries of the region are thinking and planning for the future, I quote from a speech by Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore at IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2015, end-May this year:
“50 years ago, in 1965, it was the height of the Cold War. The two major camps in the world, led by the US and the Soviet Union, defined the global strategic landscape. There were nonaligned countries, like India and Indonesia, but these two main opposing camps faced off against each other worldwide, and in Asia the conflict manifested itself in the Vietnam War and in the tensions, the frozen conflict, in the Korean Peninsula.”
Asia and major powers
He continued: “China then was not a major influence, either in the region or the world. It was a poor, backward country….. Many Southeast Asian countries thought China was a security threat because it supported insurgent communist movements in their countries..
… Japan was an important partner of the US, with the US–Japan Security Alliance. Japan was not an independent player in security terms, because of the history of the war. However, it was a major economic power….. and its dynamic economy energised the whole region and especially helped the flying geese of the newly industrialising economies, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
“Today it is a different strategic landscape. The Cold War is long over; the Soviet Union has dissolved. Russia continues to participate in this region, but its focus is in Europe and it’s near abroad, which means Central Asia and Eurasia. And in Asia, the key players are the United States and China.
“The US remains the dominant Pacific power. PACOM and the US 7th Fleet are a powerful force in being, and a key factor for peace and stability in the region….. its presence is welcomed by the many regional countries which have benefited from it, including Singapore. US interests in the region have grown with the growing weight of Asia in the world economy. The US has many preoccupations worldwide, not least Iran, the Middle East, Europe, Ukraine. But President Obama has reaffirmed that America is and always will be a Pacific power, and the Obama administration has articulated a strategic rebalance towards Asia.
Consumed by short-term issues
“Fifty years ago, had we known that we would be in this position today, we would have been more than satisfied. Asia is peaceful and prosperous. We have successfully navigated a major transition out of the Cold War. A new international order is taking shape, not without problems, but basically stable. Fifty years from now….. my optimistic hope is that a stable regional balance will continue to exist. ASEAN should be an effective and relevant actor. I expect that the US, China and Japan will remain major powers, and India will play an increasing role in the region. I hope that we will continue to have an open global system of trade, investment and economic cooperation. Certainly I hope that there will be free trade in the Asia-Pacific, instead of the current alphabet soup of trading arrangements.
There is no road map to such a happy scenario. The future is not a straight-line projection of the past. However, if we resist the temptation to be consumed by short-term issues, keep our focus on longer-term shared interest, and continue striving for a peaceful, open and inclusive international order, then step by step we will build confidence and trust and maximise our chances that the next 50 years will be stable, prosperous and an upward path.”
Alas, Bangladesh leaders are consumed by short-term issues, and a dirty, subversive power game.
Source: Weekly Holiday
